"I know you're just here to keep an eye on me."
If Evie heard him, she's not acknowledging him. The two of them are at the beach, looking for suspicious activity. Neither of the new merpeople are here, but Cam's not going to tell Evie that. He's extremely comfortable with his position as the Only Person Who Knows What's Going On.
She's not just here to keep an eye on him, though. She knows he knows about the new ones, and she thinks it's her fault, which Cam can use to his advantage. No, she's trying to see if he's going to do anything about it, which for now, he's not.
He's off duty today, so he can actually enjoy the beach without worrying about people drowning. He keeps looking out to the water out of habit, though. He might as well keep an eye on things, even if the boys have everything covered already.
The atmosphere at the beach is one of the reasons he wanted to start lifesaving in the first place. He loves the crowds (though eventually enough is enough when it comes to screaming kids) and the crash of the waves and being able to help people when things go wrong. Zac used to say Cam just liked to feel in control. He wasn't wrong.
But he's wasting time here, and no matter how much he needs Evie to believe that he's not involved in any of this, he actually has a life outside this fish people stuff, and his mum needs him to pick up groceries.
"I'm going to be frank with you," Evie says after he voices this. "I don't trust you. Zac probably doesn't trust you either, and Nixie sure as hell doesn't trust you anymore."
"What, do you wanna see the text?" His flip phone's a few years old, but his mum, for whatever reason, prefers texting over calling, so he has a good number of texts per month on his plan. Not that Telstra makes it cheap for him to buy them every month (because his dad's not going to pay for anything except his minutes), but they come in handy in situations like this.
Evie nods after a moment of hesitation, and he hands his phone over. She looks it over and then nods, and he takes his phone back and shoves it into his pocket.
"I'm off then, good luck with the search."
Evie doesn't say goodbye, just goes back to people watching, so Cam starts walking into town.
The shop is pretty busy for a Thursday, and while in the cereal aisle, he runs into a certain mermaid. Rikki doesn't recognize him, and he doesn't expect her to. She's debating between two different brands, and she pays Cam no notice.
"The weather's been pretty good recently, hasn't it?"
Rikki hums in agreement, but doesn't really look at him.
"Mako must be beautiful, especially with the low humidity we've been having. I've always wanted to see what the reefs look like."
Rikki freezes. There we go.
"I suppose. They're supposed to be really sharp, though. I don't think going out there is the best idea. You might scrape a hole in your hull."
"Ah, I dunno. Don't have to worry about that if you're swimming."
He realizes he's made a mistake as soon as he sees her shift in posture. She's a fighter, teaching kids in her free time, and she can probably knock his lights out before he has the chance to blink. Shit shit shit.
"I mean, it would take a while, but if you had a day to do it and a boat nearby to refill oxygen tanks and stuff, it wouldn't be that hard."
She relaxes a bit, but her "sure," sounds skeptical. She's walking away, about to check out, Cam realizes, and he has to do something before he loses his chance. He grabs a random box off the shelf, and he only has about half of the things on his mum's list, but he can get the rest later. He rushes himself though self-checkout, frustration growing when it takes three tries for the machine to scan his tea.
Cam catches up with Rikki right before she reaches the little path between the railroad and the back yards of houses that line the street. "Wait!" he calls, and Rikki spins around, obviously annoyed.
"What do you want?" she practically snarls at him, and Cam thinks about rethinking his plan, but it's too late to back out now.
"I know you're a mermaid."
He doesn't even register her punch until he's flat on his back in a parking lot, groceries sprawling out from his bag.
"Woah woah woah, hang on!" he says as she shifts her weight to her front foot. He holds his arms in front of his face and turns his head to the side. He definitely doesn't want to get hit in the face again. Damn, that hurt. "I just want to help you!"
Rikki doesn't answer, but when Cam lowers his arms and looks at her, she's got her arms crossed and all her weight on one leg. It's safe to assume she's going to hear him out before trying to punch him again.
"Okay." Cam stands up and brushes off his pants. "I know about you and Will because I was the one who got you off Mako the night you turned."
"Why?" Rikki asks.
"There were people coming, merpeople that were looking for you. They felt it when you turned, and if I hadn't gotten there, who knows what would have happened."
Rikki shifts to her other foot. "There are more around here?" she asks. "What do they want?"
Cam shrugs. He knows what they want, but it adds to the effect. "Mako, probably. There aren't many of them, but they're pretty powerful. I'm guessing that if they find you, they'll try to take you powers away."
Rikki takes a step back, and after an instant, squares her shoulders. "They can do that?"
"I don't think so. They've tried before and it didn't work, but who knows. They're definitely going to try."
The fish-girls probably can't actually take away anyone's power. They've tried so hard to get Zac back to normal, and that would have failed anyways if he hadn't interfered. If they can't turn that idiot back, they sure as hell won't be able to turn Rikki and Will, who are much more aware and ten time less gullible. They're not totally inconvincible, though, and he needs them to be naïve in order to pull this off. If his luck holds, Bella hasn't told Rikki about much, and she won't know about the Mako pod.
Rikki looks at him for a rather long moment before sighing. "Fine. I'll trust you, but I'm going to have to talk to the others. I'll find you when we're ready to talk." And with that, she turns around and vanishes down the path. There's no use in following her, so Cam just starts picking up his groceries and putting them back in his bag.
He'll give her time; she needs it. But he thinks he's got her, and if he's convinced Rikki, it'll be easy to convince Will.
Cam was not counting on Bella. Sure, he eventually figured out she's a mermaid, and he knows she's lived practically everywhere, but he didn't think she'd be this well-versed in mermaid culture. Hell, she knows the subtle differences between turned and born merman culture, and there's no doubt she's run into her own fair share of mermaids. He needs to tweak his plan a bit.
"They're outcasts," Cam explains. When he was told this morning that he'd finally get access to the oh-so-secret New Fish People club, he had honestly forgotten about Bella.
And Charlotte, hoo boy. She doesn't know much about the culture, but she's got fifty years worth of stories from her aunt about curious turned girls who thought they were the only fish in the sea and happened to be friends with a budding marine biologist. She may not know about the pods, but she can tell you down to the hundredth of a second how long it takes to change with various lotions and skin oils, how long a mermaid can swim non stop, and how intense the moonsickness gets in a person based on how long they've been a mermaid, how old they were when they were turned, and their moon and sun signs.
Lewis is completely clueless about everything, but he's got logic on his side, and after getting over the original shock, he's come pretty far with meshing science and magic. Cam honestly has never talked to him all that much as his marks have always been decent enough to get away with not needing a tutor, but he knows who he is. The guy is practically legend in the science part of the student body.
"And their pod just, what, left?" Bella asks.
Cam can do nothing but nod. "As soon as the pod caught wind of Zac they hightailed it out of here, pun intended. The girls got thrown out for consorting with humans."
Bella rolls her eyes. "Well of course," she says, "there aren't a lot more offenses punishable by expulsion in southern pods. They literally have like two rules: protect your home surf and don't reveal yourself to humans."
"Yeah, well, turns out one of them is David's girlfriend, not that he knows."
"David?" Charlotte chokes. "Ocean Café David? That means Sirena's one of them."
Bella huffs. "I knew there was something off about her. I just couldn't put my finger on it because most born mermaids don't come on land, and turned tend to be good at hiding it."
"And so her friends?" Rikki asks. "The two quiet ones? They're the other ones?"
"Yep. Lyla and Nixie." Cam leans back on the couch in Will's room. They, or Rikki, decided it would be the safest place to talk, with no parents, a private location, and an easy escape rout for the more hydrodynamic of the bunch. It's a surprisingly comfortable couch considering Will lives in a literal boat dock.
"And what about Zac, how does he all play into this?" Lewis asks. He's leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and Cam knows that if he makes one slip up he'll be done, so he considers his next words carefully.
"Zac is… an interesting case," Cam starts. The pause seems right. "You know how born mermen grow up, right?"
"They've got host families, adopted at a young age, and they live mostly on land once they discover what they are. Then they jump around from coastal town to coastal town, looking for signs of merfolk activity," Bella answers.
She knows more than Cam does, so he just rolls with it. "Well, that's Zac. He's actually been here for about five years, and I've known him almost as long. He's been looking to get his hands on Mako."
"A twelve-year-old moved here to take over a whole island from a pod of powerful mermaids?" Charlotte asks. She's skeptical, Cam can tell.
"They start young," Cam says, shrugging.
"And so instead of fighting him the three mermaids joined him?" Charlotte asks.
"Well they did fight him at first," Cam explains, "but eventually they kind of realized it was pointless and teamed up."
"So why are you coming to us?" Will says. He hasn't spoken up this entire conversation, and Cam almost forgot he was there. Almost being the key word there.
Cam doesn't know what he thinks of Will. Sure, the guy's a crazy-talented swimmer, or was, Cam guesses, and that probably translated well when he turned, but Cam has had maybe two classes with the boy in all of high school. He just knows that Will's quiet, and that doesn't tell him much at all.
He we go. Cam's got one shot at this, and if he wants them to trust him, he's got to deliver this right. "The reason Zac wants Mako so bad is that it's full of ancient mermen relics from the last war. They're supposedly pretty powerful, and who doesn't want a power boost ever now and then. I destroyed the Trident before it became a problem for the town, but there's plenty more there, and there's only so much a human can do."
The following silence isn't like the one that happens when someone's thinking. It's more like a morning, pregnant but unforced. It's almost theatrical the way Will just sits there, poker face on and watching him.
"So you want me to go up against him?" Will eventually asks.
Cam half-shrugs with one shoulder. "Kind of. What I want you to do is to do that and create a diversion. I've been trying to get into the moon pool for months. Frankly, if it weren't for me keeping them all busy, you would have never gotten in either. I need you to distract them on the night of the next full moon just long enough for me to get into the moon pool. Maybe then I'll be strong enough to protect the island from him." He turns his head off to the side when he says it, just loud enough that it can be heard, but quiet enough to make it see like he hadn't intended it to be.
It seems to have worked, because the next thing Cam knows, Will is standing up and crossing his arms over his chest. "Alright then. Where do we start?"